


Epilogue: Balance Requires Motion

by Nell65



Series: Living the Normal Life [3]
Category: La Femme Nikita
Genre: F/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-06
Updated: 2010-07-06
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nell65/pseuds/Nell65





	Epilogue: Balance Requires Motion

******

"Come on! Hurry up."

Erin Andersen smiled at her friend Clara's impatience and said, "I'm almost done, just have to finish the day's receipts. What's your hurry anyway?"

Clara grinned wickedly up at her. "Don't tell me you haven't heard about that group of European guys that showed up yesterday?"

Erin grinned back. "Maybe. A little."

Clara laughed. "Of course, you did. It's the end of season run of euro-trash guys, but seriously, Erin, this group is hot. I think there's some South American guys too. Skiers and boarders."

"Clara–"

Clara crossed her arms and raised her brow "Erin."

Erin laughed at her friend. "I don't know – I was thinking of heading home for an early night."

"Look, I know you're an old divorced lady of twenty-eight," Clara drew Erin's age out dramatically, always happy to find an excuse for teasing her about being five years older than Clara herself was, "but come on. It'll be fun!"

"Ha ha."

"So you're not looking to hook up – no reason not to have a drink, maybe have some food and go dancing with a bunch of hot guys."

"You don't need me."

"Buddy system – remember??"

Erin shook her head at Clara, but she knew she was, at the very least, going to the bar. She finished closing out the ski school register, double checked the reservations for tomorrow, took one last look around to make sure that every thing was as it should be, shut off the lights and locked the door. "Okay. I'm ready."

Clara practically seized her hand as she chivied Erin down the hallways of the Utah resort, and Erin tried not to let her friend's excitement infect her too much. Clara was one of her best instructors, which meant she spent her days on the slopes, checking out the new guests and getting all the best gossip from the lifties. And the gossip Clara was always the most interested in was the latest group of hot guys looking for a little nighttime action to go with their days on the runs. Clara always liked the late season groups best, the ones who skied because they loved it too much to stop and not because they were trying to impress anyone else. "Turn here."

"Why?'

"Last minute makeup check."

"Clara!" Erin rolled her eyes, but allowed herself to be dragged into the ladies room. Checking her reflection in the mirror she decided that she looked fine. She'd had to give a lesson herself today, so she was still wearing ski pants, but they were her good ones, the ones that made her well-toned ass look particularly awesome, even if she did think so herself. Her raspberry fleece pullover went well with her skin and kept her boobs from looking too big. After finger combing her short brown hair to make it spikier, at least for the next ten minutes or so, she reminded herself that one good thing about ski bums, wherever they were from, was they usually weren't put off by hat-squashed hair or minimal makeup, so her short hair and simple mascara and lip-gloss was really all she needed to feel like she could brave the crowd without further primping.

As they walked into the bar Clara pointed to a big boisterous group, ten or twelve guys and a couple of women, all with the rangy, hungry-looking ski-rat build, people who worked enough the rest of the year to cover lift tickets and booze and little else. This group was a little older than some, which appealed to Erin, looking to be generally in their middle twenties to early thirties, and slightly more well fed than most.

Clara tugged Erin's elbow as she waved at one of the men who was waving cheerfully at them. "See – look, there they are. Oh, be still my heart. Would you look at the one with dreads half way down his back."

Erin looked, and sure enough there was a guy with a close trimmed, dark beard, multiple earrings and long, dark-brown dreads sitting with the group. She rolled her eyes. "I see he's managed to strip down to a cut-up tee-shirt to show off his shoulders and biceps."

"And very nice arms they are too. Look at those tats. Rrwar." Clara growled lasciviously. "Wouldn't you like a bite of one of those?"

The dreadlocked guy turned to laugh at something they guy next to him said, and when he did, the mass of his tied-back dreads shifted and Erin had a clear view of the tattoo on his right shoulder. It was one she knew intimately, knew because she could see its mate in the mirror any time she twisted just the right way. The world seemed to stop spinning on its axis and she felt as though she had to tilt against the sudden pull of gravity. She crossed the swiftly sloping ground of the crowded bar, shouldering her way through knots of skiers juggling their drinks and hunting for tables, closing in on the tattoo that filled her vision, past and present colliding over the uneven ground under her feet.

Distantly, as though from another room, or another universe, she heard Clara call her name, "Erin? Erin?"

One of the blond guys at the table saw her coming and pointed her out to the guy with the dreads, who turned and looked straight at her. He had very tan skin, and his eyes were dark brown, and when he stood up to meet her he was as tall enough to look her right in the eye. He held out his hand, and she saw he had a couple of heavy silver rings on his long clever fingers and three narrow, black leather bracelets around his strong wrist. He said, with a slow smile. "Hi Erin. Call me César."

She took his hand, as much so she wouldn't fall over as anything else. "César?"

His warm fingers closed firmly over hers. "It's really good to see you."

She frowned; shaking her head against the way the world was shifting rapidly under her feet. "Is it really you?"

His grin was brighter than the room, and he brought up his other hand to hold hers, as though he sensed her unsteadiness and wanted to keep her from falling. He said, "Yes. It is."

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to ask you out."

Erin blinked stupidly, trying to make sense of the words. "Out?"

"Yeah. You know. On a date – dinner, movie, dancing?"

Before Erin could recover from her shock, several of the other people at the table cried, "César! Who's your friend???"

Without letting go of her he turned and introduced her to the people he had been sitting with. Erin took in nothing. She just smiled and nodded as she kept looking back and forth between the man calling himself César and the others at the table and waited for the world to stop leaning so crazily so she could find her balance again. Only then Clara arrived and exclamations and more introductions followed. Erin never heard a word over the blood rushing in her ears, even as a chair was found for her and she half fell into the seat next to César, who never once let go of her hand.

Once the conversation resumed around them, he leaned into her, so he could speak quietly despite the noisy crowd, and said, "You didn't answer my question."

Erin just stared at him because she couldn't remember the question.

"Will you go out with me?"

Finally she found her tongue. "Why now?"

He ducked his head in a gesture so familiar it hurt, grinning bashfully as he said, "I broke up with another really nice woman a few months ago, and my mami said to me, if you really want Erin, go find out if she's available." He looked straight at her then, and his expression was completely serious. "Are you?"

Erin grasped for the only word that had really made any sense. "Available?"

He grinned again. "Yes."

"For what?"

"Dinner tonight, to start with."

"You came from ….?"

"Argentina."

"Argentina. Just to ask me out for dinner."

"To start with."

"You want a lot more than dinner."

"Yes. But I'm trying hard not to freak you out."

"If you weren't trying to not freak me out?"

He smiled, and then leaned in slowly, so slowly she had plenty of time to turn away or pull back if that was what she wanted, but it wasn't. He slipped his hand around to the nape of her neck, his fingers brushing lightly against her skin, and his lips met hers in an unhurried kiss, lingering and slow. Just like that the world started spinning again, the tilting coming to a gentle halt that left her sitting firmly in her chair. She was in the crowded bar of the ski resort she had worked at for the last three years, her hands were resting on Adam's shoulders, his hands were in her hair and he was leaning his forehead against hers.

He said, "So, about that dinner?"

She asked, "How long are you staying?"

He said, "As long as you'll have me."

*****

End


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